Latest

  • Showcase your expertise in Houston next March…call for presentations is now open for APW 2017

    Share your expertise and be part of ABB’s largest and most comprehensive educational experience in North America. Submit your presentation abstract for next year’s ABB Automation & Power World, now through September 15.
    Thousands of engineers, managers, executives and ABB technical experts will converge in Houston, Texas, for this premiere event, March 13 – 16, 2017. Help

  • Fire at Coal Power Plant Blamed on Equipment Failure

    A fire at Muscatine (Iowa) Power and Water’s (MP&W’s) coal-fired power plant forced Unit 9 offline on August 30. The plant—located along the Mississippi River just south of town—includes three units with a combined capacity of about 276 MW. Units 7 and 8 were reportedly unaffected and continue to be available for power production. Customers […]

  • An Asian Nuclear Duo: Monju Down, Bataan Up?

    With costs for a restart escalating, Japan is considering scrapping its troubled Monju fast breeder nuclear reactor, just as a never-started nuclear plant in the Philippines may get a new lease on life. Monju May Be Finished Japan Times reported that readying the Monju plant for restart “would cost several hundred billion yen.” Sources said that […]

  • NRG Penalized for Faulty Wastewater Treatment at Maryland Coal Plants

    NRG Energy will pay $1 million in penalties, install environmental projects worth another $1 million, and complete costly upgrades under a consent decree it entered into with the state of Maryland to resolve wastewater discharge violations at two coal-fired power plants owned by its subsidiary GenOn. The settlement results from a June 2013 complaint Maryland […]

  • Huge Iowa Wind Farm Gets Go-Ahead

    MidAmerican Energy’s Wind XI project in Iowa, which will comprise up to 2 GW of total generation, has received approval from state regulators to proceed with construction, the company said. The $3.6 billion project will place 1,000 turbines at several sites still to be finalized. Plans were announced in April 2016, and the Iowa Utilities […]

  • Risk, reliability & recovery digital conference

    Leverage technology to manage risk & optimize reliability
    Aging infrastructure, new regulations and major weather events, combined with CAPEX constraints and reduced O&M budgets mandate risk-based decision making to optimize limited resources. While new technologies can help utilities overcome many of these challenges, they can be complicated to navigate. Attend our informative keynote panel session to

  • DOE Invests $28M in Research Projects to Enable Near-Zero-Emitting Fossil Fuel–Based Power Generation

    Fourteen research and development projects to scale up coal-based advanced combustion power systems and gasification processes and improve costs and endurance of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have won investments of more than $28 million from the Department of Energy (DOE). The Energy Department on August 24 announced it has selected the projects to help […]

  • U.S. and Canada Follow Different Climate Policy Paths—Does One Offer a Competitive Advantage?

    Although the U.S. and Canada are both aiming for similar greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, the two countries are embarking on decidedly different approaches to reaching their goals, according to a report released on August 23. IHS Markit—a company that provides information, analytics, and solutions to customers in business, finance, and government—developed the report, titled […]

  • Utility-Scale, Distributed Solar Prices Tumbled 5% to 12% in 2015

    Prices for solar energy systems fell to record lows across all sectors in 2015, according to two new reports from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The LBNL reports, released on August 24, are Tracking the Sun IX, which focuses on installed pricing trends in the distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) market, and Utility-Scale Solar 2015, […]

  • Reports: Fukushima Ice Wall Is Showing Little Success at Preventing Groundwater Inflows

    An “ice wall” put up by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) around its four crippled reactor units at Fukushima Daiichi reportedly isn’t working as planned to keep out groundwater flowing into the devastated nuclear plant. According to The Asahi Shimbun, an expert panel at Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority on August 18 said that though five […]